


The New Team

by MJ (mjr91)



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Criminal Minds, Hannibal (TV), NCIS, NCIS: Los Angeles, The Blacklist (TV), The X-Files
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-05-25 05:20:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6182026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mjr91/pseuds/MJ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil Coulson thinks he needs a beta team.  Melinda May tries to recover from his choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The New Team

**Author's Note:**

> Not quite crack. But really, if you were going to assemble a crowd that came prepared to deal with the problems SHIELD faces, who would you choose?

“Another team?” May asked in disbelief.  “How is that going to work?”

Phil Coulson shook his head.  “Got it covered.  In fact, they’re here.  In the other room.”  He inclined his head toward the door.  “Want to meet them?”

“Meet them?  I want to know how the hell you got them trained.”  Coulson smirked.  “I know that look, and you know it.  There hasn’t been any training going on.  What did you do?”  
  
More quiet mirth.  “I called in the already-trained.”  
  
“No one comes already trained for what we do.”  
  
He shook his head.  “You’d be surprised.  Come with me.”  He stood and led May to the door, opening it for her and ushering her in.  Around the conference table sat seven people, men and women, a few of them familiar to her from television news or from Internet pictures, the others unidentifiable but exotic even to her.  “Hello, everyone.  This is Melinda May.  Don’t get on her bad side.  That’s all.  Let me introduce everyone.”  He waved his hand around the table.

“I needed people who already can believe six impossible things before breakfast.  And a doctor and a scientist in one package doesn’t hurt, as you know, so I got them in one package.  May, Dana Scully.  She’s also a physicist.”

May stared, disbelieving.  That was the infamous red hair, all right.  And hadn’t Dana Scully been doing some kind of pioneering work with plastic surgery and facial reconstruction on children?  Surgeon.  FBI agent.  Some kind of paper on Einstein.  And a gun.  “You’re with the FBI.”

Scully shrugged.  “We found replacements.  Couple of kids named Einstein and Miller.  Oh, right, this is Mulder.”  Fox Mulder nodded placidly at May, a loose lock of hair near his forehead bobbing. 

“I was having a crisis of belief,” Mulder explained, lockjawed.  “I thought everything I’d believed about aliens was wrong.  But when Phil came to our office and proved – even to Scully – that there’s really something out there, and she got a look at the Asgardian tech first hand, we knew we had to come here.  There’s finally no one to stop us from searching – in fact, it’s about time I had a boss who paid me to follow my nose.  And now that we’ve got those kids, Miller and Einstein, in the Hoover Building basement to be the FBI’s most unwanted, we were free to get in on this.  Maybe now I can finally get some more answers.”

Now May swallowed.  Scully and Mulder had been on some of the craziest conspiracy junkies’ most insane internet podcasts, but they had, aside from a reputation for lunacy, a reputation for a combination of brains and sheer toughness. 

Coulson nodded.  “Glad to have you aboard.”  He moved his hand again.  “Speaking of the FBI, we needed a computer expert.  No one comes better.  Penelope Garcia.”  May stared in even greater disbelief.  Pink pigtails, red lipstick, and a dress of such floral explosion that a botanical garden must have died in the process exploded in May’s retinas. 

Garcia waved cheerily.  What color were her nails?  “I never thought I’d leave the BAU,” she explained, “but when Phil came in to talk to me… I needed a new challenge.  And my best friend wanted me to come with her.”  She reached a hand to the shoulder of the woman beside her.  Garcia might be a riot of color, but this one… did that much black, and that many zippers, really exist on one person?  May thought she’d done the black look better than anyone, but this woman took it to a whole new level, in Goth, with tattoos.

“Oh.  Hi.  I’m Abby Sciuto.  I was at NCIS – the Naval Criminal unit – in DC.  I had to get away.  I’ve lost too many of my friends.  Kate, and Ziva, and – well, when Tony left, I couldn’t take it, and Phil dropped in, and… oh, sorry.  I analyze pretty much anything from bullet casings to tire tracks to radioactive materials.  Forensic analysis of stuff.  Not people.  That was Ducky’s department… I was just glad when Phil told me Dr. Scully was coming on board, because I don’t do bodies.  Not even human ones.”  She took a long pull on a large straw that went directly into the largest Caf-Pow cup May had ever seen.  “So I told Phil to see Penelope, because I figured he could use both of us?  And I needed a friend around.”

Coulson’s smirk dropped into a look of pure satisfaction as May’s eyes lit upon the biggest brick wall of a man she’d seen who didn’t look as if he’d had any alien or Inhuman injections, implants, incisions, or alterations.  He was large, dark, and, she noted instinctively, most likely as dangerous physically as she was.  “Dembe Zuma.  He’s a jack of all trades.  We needed another guy who could just do whatever.  And besides, we kind of needed another you.  So we found him.” 

The stone moved, as his lips parted, nearly smiling.  He spoke in an accent May couldn’t quite place.  He’d most likely lived everywhere.  “My studies at university were in English, not in Norse mythology, but I am sure that Asgardian technology will not be a problem. I have been studying the files.  I have handled considerable weaponry of all types from this planet.”  May noted that he also seemed no more inclined to speech than she did.  The quiet ones were always trouble.  As Coulson had said, “another you.”

Dembe was sitting beside a woman who was no larger than May’s arm, and who was quite probably old enough to be her grandmother.

Coulson saw her incredulity.  “That is Mr. Kaplan.  Don’t ask.  She won’t tell.  Simply understand that whatever needs to be found, Mr. Kaplan can find it.  Whatever needs to disappear, she can make vanish.  She knows where every body is buried, and chances are she’s the one who buried them.”

Mr. Kaplan, tweed-suited, primly clutched a large Donna Karan purse.  “Oh, you’re flattering me,” she said.  “I’m just a cleaner, with a few other skills I picked up along the way.  It’s my sister, Hetty, who’s got the real skills in the family.”  Abby Sciuto gave her a sharp glance; Kaplan replied with a return glare, daring the younger woman to speak.  Then she inclined her head down the table toward Scully.  “I don’t mind doing first aid, but you’re doing any major surgery.  I’m just a field medic.”

“I want you to scrub in anyway,” Scully told the redhead.  “I understand you make a good OR nurse, and from what I’ve heard about the injuries around here…”

“No problem,” Mr. Kaplan assured her.  “I’m not Abby.  Bodies don’t scare me.”  
  
“They don’t scare me,” Abby protested.  “I just, I… just… well…”  
  
A quiet, authoritative voice from the end of the table cut into her fading sentence.  “You’ll be fine, Abby.  We have enough people here to deal with that.  You and Garcia stick to the research.  The rest of us can handle the messes.  I presume we’ll have them, Phil?”

May went from staring to a combination of staring and jaw-gaping.  There was no way not to recognize the owner of that voice.  He’d been in photographs, in news, on police blotters – for all the former FBI in the room, this man was the exact antithesis of the FBI.  And his suit made Phil Coulson’s look cheap.  She knew Coulson’s suits weren’t cheap.  And if Dembe Zuma was dangerous, this man was the human definition of danger that didn’t involve anyone named Tony Stark.

“You’re Raymond Reddington.”

“I am.”  No one could have been more calm.  No one could have been more lethal.  May knew it.  He was reputed to be as calm about killing as she was – at least as calm about it as she appeared to be to others.  Coulson knew May’s calm was partly a pose.  From all she’d heard, apparently Reddington’s cool was internal as well as an outer veneer.

“But you’re –“

“Bored and looking for a challenge, yes.”  From what May knew of him, if there was a way for him to make a profit on the side of the challenge, he undoubtedly would do that as well.  Was Coulson in his right mind?  No, he couldn’t be – Fox Mulder was sitting at the table as well.

“He’s the team leader,” Coulson told her.  “I’ve known Red since we were in the military.  He’s former Naval Intelligence.  He’s also the best shot I know with any kind of hand weapon, and he’s smarter than any of us.  He’s been one of our main intelligence sources for years.  And yes, Red, I promise you, there will be messes.”

“Nothing like a good mess,” Reddington sighed cheerfully.  “You know, Phil, if you do need somebody else, I’ve got a friend… another doctor, right up Doctor Scully’s alley, as a matter of fact, but he’s possibly the best weapons expert I know, and he has an even more encyclopedic knowledge of everything than I do, if that’s possible.  And he’s a hell of a chef when he’s not working.  Name’s Lecter.  Hannibal Lecter.  He’s underground right now, but I’m sure I could find him if I had to.  Speaking of chefs, isn’t it lunch?”  
  
Coulson grinned and, May thought weakly, rubbed his hands together.  “Sure.  Let’s eat.  You’re buying.  Lecter, you said?  Great.  Garcia, Mr. Kaplan, after lunch, see if you can find him for us.”


End file.
